Confrontation

Confrontation is being a Watchman, Prophet, Seer and a Dreamer.
Traditionally the prophet in Israel played a dual role. Prophets were charismatic figures who spoke words they believed were not theirs but the L-rd’s. They were also teachers whom G-d instructed and called to instruct others. That was the Torah (instruction, teaching) of the prophets (Isa. 8:16). In this respect, Ezekiel differs from his predecessors in the degree, but not in kind. The prophet as watchman (Ez. 3:16-21; 33) – that is, the one appointed to foresee and if possible to forestall judgment upon the people by warning them and bringing them to repentance – is only one variation on an old theme of the prophet as mediator.
The parabolic form easily yields to the figurative. Ezekiel’s prophetic acts are often flashy, overgenerous, even at times tasteless. We must be reminded that the prophets were not normal people. Ezekiel’s acts are often strange. So were some of Isaiah’s prophetic actions. The noble Isaiah 20:2-2 stripped himself of his loincloth and sandals and walked about naked as a sign of the L-rd’s coming judgment. Again it seems a matter of kind rather than of degree – a degree that may strain the distinction to the limit, but still a degree.
It is Yahweh who brings judgment, the same Yahweh who gives the prophet a vision of the salvation he is to proclaim. He is to confront the people, warn them, and exhort them. Those who heed his warning and act on his exhortations will be ready to live in the future that G-d’s power is bringing into existence. Those who fail to heed the prophet must bear the burden of their stubbornness.
[4:1] Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem:
[Tile – first, G-d instructs Ezekiel to take a mud brick, on of those clay tablets that were common in Babylon both for written documents and for building materials (Gen. 11:3). They are often two feet long and one foot broad.
The prophet is to depict on it a city, even Jerusalem that is under siege.
It was Jerusalem’s honour that while she kept her integrity G-d had graven her upon the palms of His hands (Isa. 49:16), and the names of the tribes were engrave in precious stones on the breast-plate of the high priest; but, now that the faithful city has become a harlot, a worthless brittle tile or brick is thought good enough to portray it upon. This the prophet must lay before him, that the eye may affect the heart.]
[2] And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.
[3] Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.
[Iron pan - is the plate presumably represents an iron wall between Ezekiel and the city that is all ready to be under siege. The prophet himself and his word will form part of the verdict of destruction that G-d has decreed. This represented the inflexible resolution of both sides.
Sign - the people were upbraided with their stupidity and dullness that they were not capable of being taught as men of sense are, by words, but must be taught as children are, by pictures, or as deaf men are, by signs.]
[4] Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity.
[This episode represents Ezekiel as playing in part the role of the scapegoat of Lev. 16:21-22. Symbolically G-d lays the guilt (the same word for punishment) upon Ezekiel while he rest on his left side for 390 days.
The left side - referring to the position of the ten tribes, the northern kingdom, as Judah, the southern, answers to "the right side". The Orientals facing the east in their mode had the north on their left and the south on their right (16:46). Also the right was more honorable than the left: so Judah as being the seat of the temple was more so than Israel.
He was ordered to lie upon his side before it, as it were to surround it, representing the Chaldean army lying before it to block it up, to keep the meat from going in and the mouths from going out.
Bear the iniquity -iniquity being regarded as a burden; so it means, "bear the punishment of their iniquity" (Numbers 14:34). A type of Him who was the great sin-bearer, not in mimic show as Ezekiel, but in reality (Isaiah 53:4, 6, 12).]
[5] For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
[Days stand for years, G-d's dealings in the past are a key to the future, for He moves on the same everlasting principles, the forms alone being short-lived.]
[6] And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.
[After the 309 days, that he bears the guilt of the house of Judah while laying on his right side for 40 days. by the terms of Num. 14:34 G-d condemned the Israelites to wander in the wilderness for 40 years, thus to bear their guilt as punishment for their disobedience.
Now we are not to think that the prophet lay constantly night and day upon his side, but every day, for so many days together, at a certain time of the day, when he received visits, and company came in, he was found lying 390 days on his left side and forty days on his right side, which all that saw might easily understand to mean the close besieging of that city, and people would be flocking in daily, some for curiosity and some for conscience, at the hour appointed, to see it and to take their different remarks upon it.]
[7] Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.[Arm . . . uncovered - to be ready for action, which the long Oriental garment usually covered it would prevent (Isaiah 52:10), the stretching out of his arm, as it were to deal blows about without mercy.
Thou shalt prophesy against it - This gesture of thine will be an unspoken prophecy against it. And there were those who not only understood it so, but were the more affected with it by its being so represented, for images to the eye commonly make deeper impressions upon the mind than words can, The power of imagination, if it be rightly used, and kept under the direction and correction of reason and faith, may be of good use to kindle and excite pious and devout affections, as it was here to Ezekiel and his attendants.]
[8] And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.[Bands - (3:25). His being found constantly on the same side, as if bands were laid upon him (as indeed they were by the divine command), so that he could not turn himself from one side to another till he had ended the days of the siege, did plainly represent the close and constant continuance of the besiegers about the city during that number of days, till they had gained their point.
Not turn from . . . side - to imply the impossibility of their being able to shake off the punishment.]
[9] Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.
[390 days represent the time of the siege.
Two separate themes occur here. The first, which is partly in parallel with 12:17-20, has to do with the quality and scarcity of food that the inhabitants of Jerusalem must expect during a siege.
Wheat . . . barley - Instead of simple flour used for delicate cakes (Genesis 18:6), the Jews should have a coarse mixture of six different kinds of grain, such as the poorest alone would eat. The bread that G-d commands Ezekiel to bake is composed of six kinds of grains and legumes, all of which were common both to Babylon and Palestine. The meaning is that food will be hard to come by, and that one must make do with whatever comes to hand.
In the Babylonian Talmud an experiment had shown that a dog will not eat bread made in this fashion. Even food of this kind, whatever its quality or lack of it, will be severely rationed, as will be water.
Fitches - spelt.
One vessel - Mix the worst with the best to lengthen out the provision.
Three hundred and ninety - The forty days are omitted, since these latter typify the wilderness period when Israel stood separate from the Gentiles and their pollution, though partially chastened by stint of bread and water (verse 16).]
[10] And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.[eat bread by weight and with care," that is, have a stinted supply and be chastened with the milder discipline of the wilderness period.
Twenty shekels - that is, little more than ten ounces; a scant measure to sustain life (Jeremiah 52:6). But it applies not only to the siege, but to their whole subsequent state.
From time to time - At set hours this was weighed out.
The stint of the Lessen diet is fourteen ounces of meat and sixteen of drink. The prophet in Babylon had bread enough and to spare, and was by the river side, where there was plenty of water; and yet, that he might confirm his own prediction and be a sign to the children of Israel, G-d obliges him to live thus sparingly, and he submits to it. The body must be kept under and brought into subjection.]
[11] Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.
[Twenty shekels of bread and the sixth part of a hin of water (about a pint and a half), or 6 ounces.]
[12] And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.[As barley cakes - Because they never had enough to make a loaf with, they eat them as barley cakes.
Dung - Not even the dung of man is worth anything! To use human dung so implies the cruelest necessity. This is a tacit reflection upon man, as intimating that he being polluted with sin his filthiness is more nauseous and horrible than that of any other creature.
The fire had to be fueled by human dung so that they would experience the same revulsion, which was signified by it, that in the extremity of the famine they should not only have nothing that was dainty, but nothing that was cleanly, about them; they must take up with what they could get. It was in violation of the law (Deut. 14:3; 23:12-14); it must therefore have been done only in vision.]
[13] And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.
[Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean, because they will live in lands where people do not observe the dietary laws (Dan. 1:5-16).
The eating of the polluted bread in the three hundred ninety days implies a forced residence "among the Gentiles" who were polluted with idolatry.]
[14] Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.
[15] Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.[Cow’s dung - G-d then permits Ezekiel to bake his bread in the conventional way. The use of dried animal dung for this purpose was and still is in practice throughout the world, and not only in primitive societies.
Bread - Still the bread so baked is "defiled," to imply that, whatever partial abatement there might be for the prophet's sake, the main decree of G-d, as to the pollution is unalterable.]
[16] Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:
[That those who remained in Jerusalem should be brought to extreme misery for want of necessary food. All supplies being cut off by the besiegers, the city would soon find the want of the country, for the king himself is served of the field; and thus the staff of bread would be broken.
Staff of bread is a local touch. The expression involves more than our metaphor of bread as the staff of life. The loaves of the day were, as they still are in many parts of the world, round. They also had holes in the center so that they could be stacked on a staff in the baker’s house. If that is what the expression implies, we have a much more graphic picture of the L-rd’s cutting off the people’s food supply by smashing the bread staffs of the city.
They should eat and drink with care, to make it go as far as might be, and with astonishment, when they saw it almost spent and knew not which way to look for a recruit. And the event shall be as bad as their fears; they cannot make it worse than it is, for they shall consume away for their iniquity; multitudes of them shall die of famine, a lingering death, worse than that by the sword (Lam. 4:9); they shall dies so as to feel themselves die. And it is sin that brings all this misery upon them: They shall consume away in their iniquity (so it may be read); they shall continue hardened and impenitent, and shall die in their sins, which is more miserable than to die on a dunghill.]
[17] That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.
[May want - So because they served not G-d with cheerfulness in the abundance of all things, He made them serve their enemies in the want of all things. To eat meat made up by Gentile hands otherwise than according to the law of the Jewish church, which they were always taught to call defiled, and which they would have as great an dislike to as a man would have to bread prepared with dung, that is kneaded and mounded with dung.
Astonied one with another - mutually regard one another with astonishment: the stupefied look of despairing want.]
[Job 33:12] Behold, in this thou art not just: I will answer thee, that God is greater than man.
[In this - the difference between the charge which Elihu exhibited against Job and that which was preferred against him by his other friends; they would not own that he was just at all.
You are not just - His activities to convince him that he had spoken amiss in speaking thus, and that he ought to humble himself before G-d for it and by repentance to unsay it. You have laid charges against G-d's dealings, but you have not been able to justify those charges.
Many that are just yet, in some particular instances, do not speak and act like themselves; and as, on the one hand, we must not fail to tell even a good man wherein he mistakes and does amiss, nor flatter him in his errors and passions, for in that we are not kind, so on the other hand we must not draw men’s characters, nor pass a judgment on them, from one instance, or some few misplaced words, for in that we are not just.
G-d is greater than man - Two things Elihu proposes to Job’s consideration, to convince him that he had said amiss:
That G-d is infinitely above us, and therefore it is madness to contend with Him; for if he pleads against us with His great power we cannot stand before Him. Between G-d and man there is no proportion. There is enough in this one plain unquestionable truth, That G-d is greater than man, if duly improved, for ever to put to silence and to shame all our complaints of His providence and our exceptions against His dealings with us. He is not only more wise and powerful than we are, and therefore it is to no purpose to contend with Him who will be too hard for us, but more holy, just, and good, for these are the transcendent glories and excellencies of the divine nature; in these G-d is greater than man, and therefore it is absurd and unreasonable to find fault with Him, for He is certainly in the right.]
Should one avoid confutation if they are lead to call people into accountability?
After all it would ruffle people’s feathers and does not make the messenger very favorable.

Have you ever been in the middle of something and needed an 'iron pan' to block the noise so you can hear directly from G-d?
One must not speak in the flesh before getting into the Spirit to see how He wants it delivered.
Can we learn anything from the OT stories?
Is sin still sin?
Are we going to be held accountable one day for all the words, jesters and actions we do?
What does it say about tying a milestone around the neck?
Does G-d use all different ways to warn us or punish us as in the days of old?
Have you ever felt like the scapegoat?
A true friend will speak the truth, it may be tough love, but better than loving one into hell fire.
What have you learn from this lesson?